PC hardware appears to have really slowed its development pace down in the last 5 years. My last PC was purchased in 2011, and comprised of: Intel 2600K (Sandybridge) 32GB RAM nVidia 780Ti 512GB Corsair GTX Neutron 3TB Seagate hard disk x 2 (the graphics card was upgraded to the 780Ti last year). Of course no respectable PC do-it-yourself-er would go with anything other than a water cooled system, and I had chosen a 5/8" outer diamter tubing for maximum water flow. ...

Had a fantastic time “off-roading” in the Lake District at the start of December (weekend of the 6th and 7th), on an organised tour with Yorkshire 4x4 Specialists, led by Russell. It was quite a long drive up from Southampton, but took turns driving with my Dad who accompanied me to share the burden. The day kicked off by throwing us in the ‘deep end’, with a very steep rocky technical road up into the mountains. The group consisted of 5 vehicles, 4 Defenders and one Discovery. There were plenty of axle twisters to leave us stranded finely balanced: ...

The lights fitted to my Land Rover were not exactly the latest word in high luminosity. In fact they probably go someway to explaining why the Lumen value of headlights is usually measured in the thousands - a scale which is perfectly suited to recording the light value of my lights in the lower numbers. To make matters worse, mine had ‘fogged’ up in a stripe pattern on the inside of their lenses: ...

A work colleague recommeded a German printing company called ‘Picanova’, which do discount deals with significant savings (like 60% off at the time of writing!), providing you get the right URL. I thought that would give it a go, so dropped the recently taken Kingfisher onto their website and chose the 60x40cm size. Delivery time was 15 days which was longer than they stated, but I guess its a long way from German. It came wrapped in a single cardboard shell. ...

A trip to Blashford Lakes in search of Kingfishers in August started off in one of the hides with a nice close up of a Lapwing: Followed by the arrival of a Heron, gliding in over the waves to a stand situated out in the lake. A baby Crested Grebe was also paddling along with its Mother/Father: By which point the Heron seemed to have noticed me in the hide - they sure do have sharp eyes! ...

Very hot Saturday which meant the air was quite turbulent and not suited to long distance photography. ...

Another warm but overcast RIAT Friday arrivals day. Not all the action was in the air… ...

The Le Mans Classic 2014 once again provided the usual fun and contrasting weather conditions! ...

Abingdon Air and Country Show 2014 images:

Using one of the MudUK “Mud Pods” I wanted to fit a number of dials to monitor the engine. I might have gone down the road of one of the South African MadMan Monitors if I had known about its full potential, but went with a full set of Croytek VDO gauges, which comprised of: Voltmeter Boost pressure Oil Temperature Oil Pressure td5 rev counter The rev counter was fitted into the main instrument panel for ease of viewing, the other gauges shuffled along one slot and the clock moved to the Mud Pod. ...